The news that a senior cop was attacked and injured during an eviction exercise of the residents of Kampung Sungai Baru is not only disturbing in itself, but it draws parallels to the great unrest that Indonesia has endured and Nepal is now witnessing.
While we cannot yet determine whether the uprisings by the people against their governments in Nepal and Indonesia are directly connected, the underlying cause appears strikingly similar. Citizens feel that their elected officials are indulging in privileges while ordinary people are increasingly pressed injustice and the the weight of daily struggles.
In Malaysia, attacks against government officials—especially senior police officers—are rare. To hear such a case today is deeply unsettling.
It is of course necessary for the government to bring the perpetrators to justice. Yet it would be prudent for the government to also take stock of the wider implications of the incident. How do ordinary people perceive what happened?
If the majority see the attack as shameful and condemn it outright, then society’s moral compass still holds firm. But if the silence is deafening, it may reflect something more troubling—that ordinary Malaysians are quietly sympathising with the frustrations behind such acts. That silence, if it exists, should serve as a warning.
Governments must do more than enforce the law. They must also measure the pulse of society. Do the people feel that their leaders and representatives are aware of their struggles? Do they believe their hardships are taken seriously—or do they perceive that those in power live in comfort, detached from the daily grind of the rakyat?
These questions are not academic. Across the region, the answers have already spilled into the streets.
In Nepal, protests that began over a temporary government ban on Facebook, X, and YouTube spiralled into deadly unrest. Demonstrators, angry at corruption and nepotism, torched the homes of senior leaders. Tragically, Rajyalaxmi Chitrakar, the wife of former Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal, was killed after protesters set fire to her house. Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s residence was also attacked, and videos circulated of his finance minister being beaten in the streets. Nineteen lives were lost before Oli was forced to resign.
In Indonesia, the death of a motorcycle taxi driver—run over by police during protests against lawmakers’ financial perks—sparked the largest demonstrations of President Prabowo Subianto’s young presidency. Anger spread from the streets to the doorsteps of the powerful. The home of finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati was looted, alongside several other lawmakers’ residences. Soldiers had to be stationed outside her house after mobs ransacked it twice in a single night.
When the line etween economic stress, political privilege, and police action blurs, trust in institutions collapses—and mobs take justice into their own hands.
Malaysia is nowhere near that level of unrest, but the incident in Kampung Sungai Baru should serve as a reminder of how fragile stability can be when the people’s perception of fairness erodes. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was right to condemn the attack as “heinous” and call for swift justice. Yet condemnation alone will not heal the underlying anxieties.
The eviction dispute itself illustrates the dilemma: residents say they are following legal advice and awaiting a court decision, but the developer presses ahead. Meanwhile, rumours swirl of “paid protesters” being planted to create chaos. All this fuels public cynicism about whose interests are truly being served.
For Malaysia, the lesson from Kathmandu and Jakarta is clear. Leaders cannot afford to be seen as enjoying themselves while their citizens struggle. The legitimacy of authority depends not only on laws and enforcement, but also on whether people feel that justice, compassion, and fairness remain alive in the system.
If the rakyat ever come to believe otherwise, then the unrest of our neighbours will no longer seem like distant news.
TheRealNehruism (nehru.sathiamoorthy@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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